Sanitation at La Canada

We are about to purchase a property at La Canada, which I have to say looks a lovely site and I fell in love with it . However we have been reading several forums which have postings with concerns over the sanitation. Does anyone have any facts about the situation. I cannot believe that a builder would build all these properties without adequate sanitation, also I am sure there would have been issues before now. Can some one enlighten us please.

Also we are a little confused over the issue of Certificate of habitacion or FOL First occupancy licence. Some solicitors say that we should not complete without it bit people are obviously living at La Canada without this certificate, does this affect your rights etc.

We also noticed that the water is still on builders supply and not metered to the properties yet. This seems to be common practice in Spain, but the builder could turn this off at any time. Again this could be dependant on the certificate etc.

Any info would be greatfully recieved  

Allan and Dee 

HI there and welcome to La Canada.

We purchased our property in 2007 and have enjoyed many happy times there since.

We have our own community website www.lacanada.eu which has some up to date details from one of the community presidents about latest info from Town Hall.

There does sound to be some issue with the sewage but as far as we are aware it has not caused any problems yet on site. It is due to be resolved either by Quara or the Town Hall.

The question of the FOL is apparently held up by the Town Hall who presumably are using it to get Quara to do things. We understand that without the FOL it can reduce the sale price of a property but as we understand it there is no reason to suppose that the Town Hall will not issue it in the near future.

We would strongly suggest that your lawyer confirms that Quara have paid the community fees up to date (as they are in arrears on Phase 1 - Plots 1 to 33) and do a detailed snagging list check before completing taking photographs and making note of all faults as we have had delays with Quara fixing snags (we are still waiting for some to be fixed that were reported more than a year ago).

Snags aside we enjoy our villa in La Canada and would look forward to meeting you sometime.